## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period** Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year **From** 01 01 2024 **To** 31 12 2024 ## Section A Reference and administration details ~~ee~~ ## **Charity name** Ide Hill Pre School ~~PO~~ **Other names charity is known by** > **Registered charity number (if any)** ~~[LT~~ 1031381 **Charity's principal address** Ide Hill Village Hall Ide Hill Kent **Postcode** TN14 6JG ## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity** **Trustee name Office (if any) Dates acted if not for whole year** Chair Elected 5[th] September 22 1[Brenda Bates] Left July 2024 2 Camilla Foy Chair Elected September 2024 3 Elizabeth Money Manager Re-elected Oct 2023 4 Amy Ward Re-elected Oct 2023 5 Stephanie Freed Elected Oct 2023 6 Cat Melvin Elected Oct 2023 Elected Oct 2023 7[Sarah Bracewell-Milne] Left July 2024 8 Jennifer Fletcher Elected Oct 2024 9 Melissa Hequet Elected Oct 2024 **Dates acted if not for whole year** - 9 Melissa Hequet **Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (if any)** 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 **TAR** October 2025 1 **Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)** **Name Dates acted if not for whole year** **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information) Type of adviser Name Address Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)** Pre School Manager – Elizabeth Money ## **Section B Structure, governance and management** ## **Description of the charity’s trusts** Pre School Learning Alliance 2011 Constitution Type of governing document (eg. trust deed, constitution) Unincorporated Association How the charity is constituted (eg. trust, association, company) Trustee selection methods Trustees are appointed or repointed annually at the Annual General Meeting held in October (eg. appointed by, elected by) ## **Additional governance issues (Optional information)** You **may choose** to include Ide Hill Pre School is open to local children aged from 2 years until they go to school at the age of 4 years old. additional information, where relevant, about: We very much welcome all children, including those who need extra help and support with development milestones. - policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees; The Manager of the pre school Mrs Money manages the day-to-day running of the preschool which includes managing a team of 5 staff members. Our trustees oversee the running of the pre school. - the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works; - The pre school employees an Administrator, Jennifer Smith, who is approved to - relationship with any related look after the banking for the pre school. She oversees that the committee meet - parties; its obligations with DBS and Ofsted checks and put together the accounts for the - trustees’ consideration of pre school. Jennifer Smith is not a trustee. major risks and the system and procedures to manage All trustees are required to abide by our confidentiality policy and are all - them. All trustees are required to abide by our confidentiality policy and are all required to read our safeguarding policy. All trustees give of their time freely and no remuneration is paid. **TAR** October 2025 2 ## **Section C Objectives and activities** |**Summary of the objectives of**
**the charity.**
**Summary of the main activities**
**undertaken for the public**
**benefit in relation to these**
**objects (include within this**
**section the statutory**
**declaration that trustees have**
**had regard to the guidance**
**issued by the Charity**
**Commission on public benefit)**|Our objectves for 2024-2025:-
The early years environment is contnuously evolving; online CPD has been
booked to understand the recent changes regarding the way Ofsted now grade
Early Years setngs. There is also change from September 2025 regarding
recruitment, safeguarding and welfare requirements for young children. We will
be contnuing CPD, skilful planning and teaching to the highest standard.
CPD
With Communicaton & Language one of the prime areas of learning we have
identfed that a signifcant number of children have speech delay. We are
contnuing to work with ICAN to improve artculaton/speech sounds and
refresher training for SENCo/Staf has been provided in Makaton/ICAN which has
been cascaded to the team and these ICAN sessions are now built into the
curriculum at the pre-school.
Improving Gross Motor Skills for 2 year olds
With the introducton of 2 year olds into the pre-school – we have identfed that
some additonal equipment is required. Through regular “Progress trackers”
system, this has highlighted that gross motor skills partcularly in our 2 year olds is
an area of learning that requires some further interventon. The provision of a
robust much needed Indoor Wooden Climbing Frame will be purchased (via
fundraising/grants) to develop/progress the skills of the pre-school children.
PE apparatus are needed to be accessible for both indoors/outdoors and will
enhance the children’s gross motor physical skills; actvatng muscles, joints,
balance simultaneously; creatng beter body balance - alongside cognitve and
social-emotonal skills.
All members of staf have now gained their paediatric frst aid qualifcaton.
The New Manager will atend Designated safeguarding course in Autumn term.| |---|---| ||Overview
Our numbers have improved this academic year, with the introducton of
“Working Parents Enttlement WPE” and introducing 30 hours for children from
September 2025, resultng in the pre-school opening longer hours to
accommodate these changes. September2025 – we have 27 children, October -
we have 29 children and 30 children in January 2026. A waitng list of 4 at
present.
Staf/Leadership
Afer 18 years as Manager of Ide Hill Preschool and 3 Ofsted Outstanding grades,
Liz Money is retring. A new Manager, Kellie Ferguson, has been appointed and
she will take over the role from September 2025. Elaine Tappenden is retring in| **TAR** October 2025 3 the Summer 20205 and a new member of staff has joined, Amy Young who will join the team in September 2025. We currently have 6 members of staff including the manager. ## June 2024 In June the children invited their much-loved teddies to a picnic lunch. This is a wonderful fun filled event to host; developing the children’s communication and social skills. The children allow the teddies to share food encouraging, sharing and teaching concepts of fairness. The children played games, enjoyed role play; taking responsibility of planning and leadership as they arranged their toys around the picnic table. ## July 2024 With the summer heat upon us - the entire pre-school community; children, parents’ and teaching staff headed to Godstone Farm in the Surrey countryside for a summer’s day outing. The farm provides an active learning environment with a dedicated team of staff who ensured our day was the perfect place to finish the pre-school year. The children were able to learn about the animals, experience sights, smells and sounds on the farm. With a picnic area for lunch our group visit was tailored made us. ## New School Year September – 2024 ## ‘Walking in the shoes of Giants’ September began with an ‘all new’ pre-school chapter ‘Being Two’ – The introduction of children at a starting age of two years to the setting. Staff attended training ‘Walking in the shoes of Giants’ - The training equipped the teaching staff and pre-school as a whole to have strong processes in place to maintain our quality outstanding provision for our entering two-year-olds. ## October/November – 2024 Gymnastics has now become an essential regular weekly part of our physical gross-motor curriculum development. With the coaching/support of our fully qualified gymnastics coach ‘Jake Marro’; all children skills have been steadily progressing with fun, focus and engaging gymnastics; building physical fitness, confidence and basic movement co-ordination. ## December 2024 December ignited the countdown to our nativity ‘A Brand-New Star’’ again after the absence during the pandemic of our nativity; for the second year we were delighted to begin again rehearsing our traditional musical nativity. The performance brought a huge collaborative effort together from children, teachers and parents’ involvement -creatively in stage scenery/props. Christmas Hampers and Refreshments were as always, an opportunity to fund raise. March 2025 World Book Day in March or Book Week as we have often called it at Ide Hill PreSchool; is a celebration of how the children can be encouraged to discover reading on their own terms, together with inspiring reading in partnership with parents, friends and teachers. Throughout the week the children entered preschool dressed as their favourite book characters, bringing a book to share. A prize was given for the most creative costume. The children engaged in many literacies associated activities, firing their imagination and narrative skills. ## May 2025 This May marks the 80 anniversaries of VE Day, we will be celebrating this important historic milestone with a VE Snack/Tea Party. The children can learn **TAR** October 2025 4 through an exciting 1940’s style tea-party atmosphere about the diversity of how different families celebrated the end of war-time restrictions with VE Day parties/teas. Teaching staff will be able to focus on share stories of older generations experiences; providing and passing on intergenerational knowledge. ## The Team I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all of my staff team, it has been an absolute honour and pleasure to have worked for at Ide Hill Preschool for the last 18 years. I am looking forward to my retirement and wish you every success for the forthcoming year. ## Commitee Finally, I would like to thank Jennifer Smith, our Finance Administrator, for her enormous contribution to the pre-school. Also, a huge thank you to Camilla our Chairperson, who has worked incredibly hard fundraising for the pre-school and I am so pleased that she will continue to work alongside our new Manager Kellie Ferguson for the next academic year. ## **Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)** You **may choose** to include Camilla Foy – Chair (September 2024 to Present) further statements, where relevant, about: I took over from Brenda Bates, who had been a dedicated and muchvalued Chair of Ide Hill Pre-School. Stepping into the role in September 2024, I was excited to take on the responsibilities and opportunities that come with supporting such a special setting. I knew I was in safe hands working closely alongside our wonderful Manager, Liz Money, and the fantastic staff team. - policy on grantmaking; - policy programme related investment; - contribution made by volunteers. My aim each term was to host a coffee morning and an evening social event for parents, as well as a committee meeting to ensure open communication and collaboration within our community. Term 1 & 2 We had a lovely start to the Autumn term with a welcome coffee morning for parents. A great way to connect new and returning families. From there, we quickly embraced the festive season, preparing for our muchloved Nativity show. Alongside the performance, we ran a number of fundraising activities including a toy tombola, a festive hamper raffle, ‘guess the weight of the Christmas cake’, and served refreshments. We ended the term with a cheerful Christmas party for the children. Thanks to the generosity of our parents and families, we raised an incredible £580, which goes directly towards enriching the children’s experience at pre-school. Term 2 was a little quieter after the busy Christmas break. It was lovely to get everyone settled back in and re-establish routines for the new year. ## Term 3 & 4 We ran a successful coffee morning and a well-attended evening social for parents. These events are a key part of our aim to keep communication open and our sense of community strong. This term also saw our lovely Easter show, where the children delighted us with their songs and smiles. We accompanied the event with a hamper raffle and refreshments, helping to raise an impressive £480 thanks to the generosity of the families. **TAR** October 2025 5 ## Term 5 & 6 Summer kept us very busy with a fantastic line-up of fundraising events and celebrations to end the year. We kicked things off with the Ide Hill Village Fair, where we helped run three inflatables which were hugely popular with children on the day! We were absolutely thrilled to receive £600 from the event proceeds, which was a brilliant boost for the pre-school. We then held another successful Family Fun Day, complete with water activities (on what turned out to be a very hot day!), a bouncy castle, cake sale, lucky dip, toy tombola, and plenty of refreshments. It was a joyful afternoon enjoyed by all, raising £260 in support of the pre-school. Next came our much-loved Coin Trail, where we asked families to donate spare change to help us create the longest coin line possible. The children loved taking part, and together we raised £86. One of the highlights of the term was our wonderful school trip to Godstone Farm. The children had a brilliant day exploring the farm, enjoying animal encounters, and sharing a big group picnic with their friends, families, and teachers. A truly memorable outing for all. We also hosted a coffee morning and finished the term with a cheerful Sports Day, where the children took part in fun races and games, cheered on by parents and family. Alongside the event, we ran a summer hamper raffle and served refreshments, raising **£321.50** . All of our fundraising successes this year wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible support of the committee, the families, and the dedicated staff of the pre-school. I look forward to welcoming new committee members in the coming year and continuing to grow this amazing community together. Following Sports Day, we held our School Leavers’ Presentation, a chance to celebrate our amazing children as they prepare to move on to the next chapter. It was a lovely occasion filled with smiles (and a few tears), as we looked back on all the memories they’ve made during their time with us. Keeping up with tradition, the children gave a leaving present to the preschool. This year, we were delighted to purchase a large set of magnetic tiles for all the children to enjoy. The children (and staff!) were absolutely ecstatic, a gift that will be played with for years to come. We also said heartfelt goodbyes to two much-loved members of our team, Mrs Money and Mrs Tappenden. Both have made a lasting impact on our pre-school community through their dedication, kindness, and care. They leave behind many happy memories and grateful families, and we wish them all the best. Looking ahead, I’m looking forward to working closely with Mrs Ferguson, who will be stepping into the role of Manager from September. We’ve already been catching up and sharing ideas, and we’re both excited about the year to come and continuing to build on the strong foundations of Ide Hill Pre-School. **TAR** October 2025 6 ## Section D Achievements and performance **Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year** **Verve Training/Interaction Course** Following the detrimental impact of the Covid 19 Pandemic on young children’s speech and language development mainly attributed to children having much fewer opportunities to develop these skills at home together with wide closure of educational provision. The setting has now in turn seen a sharp increase in the need for practitioners to take responsibility to provide additional targeted support for the children. We have in respect addressed this ongoing concern over 2024 by providing ‘Verve’ Child Interaction Training initially to our Senco/Senior Pre-School teacher. Over a course of one hour sessions for a 6 week period - delivered by a previous parent, children’s author/illustrator Kate Yeo and trained Speech and Language therapist - then in parts cascaded to all staff members. The Verve Child Interaction training uses videos to place professional selfreflection and collaboration at the centre of learning process, whilst providing clear visual evidence of each child’s developing skills. The focus has been on underpinning the adult in observing/facilitating the emerging skills of the individual child. We have been able to evidence how important responding and being consistent is to helping each child resource and use their own skills throughout play/learning. The practitioners described this training as ‘transformational’. The launch of our visual tour via our website in 2023, provided another excellent marketing tool that allowed parents to see the structure/visual layout and ethos/learning environment that our ‘Outstanding’ pre-school offers. **TAR** October 2025 7 ## **Section E Financial review** ## **Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves** From 1[st] January 2024 to 31[st] December 2024 we made an unfortunate loss of £14,606.86. This is due to the very low numbers we had from September 2023 to July 2024 along with rising costs of rent, pay increases for staff to meet minimum wage increases and increased costs of materials and consumables. The preschool was in a very vulnerable position in early 2024 so as a result staff took on reduced hours. However, numbers did start to pick up in April 2024 and again in September 2024. As of the 31/12/2024 we had £7,168.55 cash in our operating account in unrestricted funds. We also keep a reserve account which had a balance of £46,994.09 as of 31/12/2024 which we luckily did not have to touch. This money is kept aside to cover unexpected operational costs for a few months in the event of loss of income, any redundancy costs should the situation arise or any other unforeseen expenditure. **Details of any funds materially** Not applicable **in deficit** ## **Further financial review details (Optional information)** Our main sources of income are from the fees we charge for our services as You **may choose** to include well as the nursery government funding which has thrown many changes over additional information, where the last 12 months. relevant about:  the charity’s principal We raised a total of £1,967.84 through our fundraising efforts for the presources of funds (including school. any fundraising);  how expenditure has In the summer of 2023, the village hall updated their electricity from a coin supported the key objectives meter to charging us an increased rent which incorporates the electricity costs. of the charity; This change was seen through the winter of 2023/2024 as rather than needing  investment policy and petty cash to top up, the preschool received an increase in rental costs. objectives including any ethical investment policy As a result, we no longer need petty cash as this was only used to for adding adopted. coins to the meter. Any snack purchases are claimed back by teachers on expenses. **TAR** October 2025 8 **Section F Other optional information** **TAR** October 2025 9 IDE HILL PRE SCHOOL Charity Number: 1031381 Annual Accounts Year Ended . Dec-24 Recei ts and Pa ments Accounts 2024 2023 RECEIPTS Fees 55,910.40 52,736.63 1,967.84 150.00 66,334.36 53,903.87 1,450.28 437.00 15,715.38 Nursery Education Grant Fundraising Donations Bank Interest 1,182.50 TOTAL 111947.37 137 840.89 EXPENDITURE Staff Costs Professional Fees Bank Charges Premises Marketing Equipment Materials Food Insurance (107,995.77) (793.17) (60.00) (7,978.00) 0.00 (2,281.72) (388.80) (630.00) (678.90) 0.00 (5,747.87) (107,713.04) (590.00) (60.00) (6,324.04) 0.00 (1,044.43) (3,679.98) (690.00) (648.29) (903.00) (3,761.95) Heating Miscellaneous TOTAL 126 554.23 125 414.73 TOTAL PROFIT / (LOSS) 14 606.86 12 426.16 Balance Sheet 2024 2023 Actual Bank Balance @ 31 December Petty Cash Balance @ 31 December 54,162.64 0.00 69,006.30 0.00 Net Assests 54,162.64 69,006.30 Total Income. Total Expenditure 111,947.37 (126,554.23) 137,840.89 (125,414.73) Profit / Loss for year Profit Reserve b/fwd (14,606.86) £45,853.48 12,426.16 59,155.46 Profit Reserve c/fwd 31,246.62 71,581.62 I can confirm that the above accounts give a true and fair view of the pre school's financial position for the year ended 31 December 2024 Richard Jepson FCCA IDE HILL PRE SCHOOL Charity Number: 1031381 Annual Accounts Year Ended 31st December 2024 Camilla Foy Chairperson Ide Hill Pre School Signed on behalf of all Trustees CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND ANO WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examlner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of Ch